ENERGY BLOG -- SCOTT SUTTELL

Most Ohioans don't know much about fracking

The 2012 Ohio Health Issues Poll asked Ohioans what they knew about fracking, and the answer, perhaps not surprisingly, is not very much.

“Most Ohio adults said they knew a little (32%) or nothing at all (31%) about fracking, while 37% said they knew a lot,” The (Youngstown) Business Journalreports.

“Of those who had heard of fracking, more than half think that fracking is happening in their region,” the story notes.

But according to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, “fracking permits have been issued almost exclusively in northeast and southeast Ohio, with one permit in central Ohio,” says Jennifer Chubinski, director of community research for the Health Foundation of Greater Cincinnati, which sponsored the poll.

“A majority of respondents in Northeast and Southeast Ohio knew that fracking is happening in their region,” she tells The Business Journal. “However, in other regions, many respondents also reported that fracking is happening in their part of the state.”

Ohioans familiar with fracking “were almost evenly split when asked if they thought fracking poses a threat to the health of the general public; 38% said fracking does not cause a health threat, and 36% said that it does,” according to the newspaper.

“The conclusion we can reach from these data is that Ohioans still have much to learn about fracking — about what it is, where it is and what it means,” Ms. Chubinski says.

Some don't like it hot

Nuclear power production in the United States is at the lowest seasonal levels in nine years as drought and heat force reactors from Ohio to Vermont to slow output, Bloomberg reports.

As of last Thursday, July 26, generation for the 104 U.S. nuclear plants was 94,171 megawatts, or 93% of capacity, the lowest level for this time of year since 2003, according to reports from the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission and data compiled by Bloomberg. The news service notes the total is down 2.6% from the five-year average for July 26 of 96,725 megawatts.

FirstEnergy Corp.'s Perry 1 reactor in Lake County reduced production to 95% of capacity last Thursday due to above-average temperatures, Bloomberg notes. Nuclear plants “require sufficient water to cool during operation, and rivers or lakes may get overheated or fall in times of high temperatures and drought,” according to the story.

Todd Schneider, a FirstEnergy spokesman, told Bloomberg that plant output fluctuated throughout July “because of the weather conditions, including outside temperature and humidity. The higher temperatures make it more difficult to run at 100%.”

He's got a friend

The influential Wall Street Journal editorial page gives an important thumbs-up to Gov. John Kasich's plan to convert Ohio's burgeoning energy wealth into a tax cut for state residents.

“The Buckeye State currently imposes a relatively low 20-cent severance tax on oil and three cents for gas,” The Journal writes in an editorial. “For a barrel of oil, this double dime levy amounts to two-tenths of 1%, an artifact of the era when its resources weren't economically or technologically recoverable.”

Gov. Kasich, the paper writes, “wants to modernize the tax structure now that Ohio is becoming an energy producer, but without enlarging government.” (Annual proceeds would go into a fund devoted to lowering all personal income tax rates dollar for dollar.)

The Journal says Gov. Kasich's proposal “would raise the severance tax to about 2.7% of the market value of oil or gas, depending on the type of well. As the industry matures and production peaks, the tax would on present price trends raise between $459 million and $547 million each year, equivalent to a 5% across-the-board tax cut for each of Ohio's nine brackets.”

The plan “is controversial in Ohio's Republican-controlled legislature and among some Tea Partiers, and as with any tax increase the danger is that some future government will renege, pocket the revenue and return to raising income taxes,” The Journal notes. But the energy levy “is sure to increase if production booms, and the Kasich formula ensures the money isn't spent on new programs. Meantime, lower rates on income and capital investment are a net plus for economic growth.”

Here comes the sun

Businessweek.com notes that the giant retailer “has installed more than 150 U.S. solar projects and expects to have as much as 90 megawatts of capacity by year-end, more than Ikea Group and Apple Inc.”

Wal-Mart's San Diego store is the 100th to get solar panels in California. It has 62 megawatts of panels installed at U.S. locations and operates fuel cells and wind turbines at some sites. The company, with 4,522 stores nationwide, expects to have 1,000 solar-powered locations by 2020. It currently gets about 4% of its power from renewable sources.

An analysis by Slate.com notes that this is a case where Wal-Mart's size — often decried by observers — produces a social good.

“There's a tendency to sentimentalize the small in American life, but scale has some real advantages,” according to Slate.com. “A small firm is going to have enormous difficulty even studying the question of whether some unorthodox approach to energy makes sense. Instead, decision-making will be driven by a mix of inertia and personal biases. And very large firms have the ability to make changes at large enough scales to overcome the inevitable transition costs that come from changing anything.”

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